> ... BBC-origin trash on PBS in the US. There is a subset of the American> population who think that a British accent automatically means "high> culture"; never mind that the "humor" (humour?) is low-brow and the> production values are wretched.

The programmes are not made for PBS viewers, Mark. They're made for
the British population, licence payers who, as the audience figures
show, watch them. They also watch programmes made by the commercial
channels -- there's been a 50-50 split in audience terms, more or
less, for most of the last 50 years, in terms of absolute audience
figures at any particualr moment, but most of the population watches
or listens to one or more BBC stations at some time during the
week. There is, as Paul points out, some opposition to the licence
fee, but in fact there is not much. That, as I said earlier, is
democracy. If democracy works, the majority wins and the minority
loses. In this case, the minority opposes the licence fee. The
majority is happy with it and the BBC service that it funds. The fact
that Mark doesn't like the programmes -- or his fellow Americans who
watch them on PBS -- doesn't matter. In this case, neither he nor the
PBS viewers have a say in how we in the UK choose to fund our TV and
radio channels.